Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis said her campaign’s recently released attack ad, which featured a wheelchair and attacked her disabled opponent Attorney General Greg Abbott’s (R) on disability rights, was not a personal attack.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked Davis if the ad was a “personal attack” in an interview on Tuesday.
“Absolutely not. This is about who he has been as a public servant. And we’ve seen it time and time again,” Davis said before ticking off a list of critiques against Abbott including taking money from the Koch Brothers and taking money from payday lenders while taking money from payday lenders while also releasing an opinion that they could charge unlimited rates to teachers and veterans.
“Time and again he has shown that this is who he’s fighting for, he’s fighting for the insiders, not the people in the state,” Davis said.
The ad in question attacks Abbott from benefiting from a lawsuit over his paralysis while, according to the Davis campaign, not doing enough to help other disabled victims. The ad has gotten criticism for its emphasis on Abbott’s wheelchair. The Davis campaign, however, said it’s not about Abbott personally.
“This ad focuses on the fact that Greg Abbott rightly sought justice for himself, following a horrible accident,” Davis spokeswoman Lauren Weiner told TPM. “And then spent his career denying that same justice to other victims, like when he said an amputee shouldn’t be considered disabled because she had an artificial limb.”
The TPM Polltracker average gives Abbott a 10.3 point lead over Davis.
